


every time we meet, i crumble at the seams

by eleven_twelve



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - War, Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, also minor johnten en jaeyong but only if u wnat i guess, it could be purely platonic too, its sad okay, kind of, mentions of guns and violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 11:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10875489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleven_twelve/pseuds/eleven_twelve
Summary: There's an infinite amount of universes where Mark falls in love with Donghyuck. They all break apart when Mark realises that they're never going to work out.





	every time we meet, i crumble at the seams

**Author's Note:**

> this is terrible and im so sorry

The bed Mark wakes up in is cold. The stiff sheets feel unfamiliar under his icy fingertips, the mattress hard. The air around him smells like smoke and rain, like death and pain. He doesn't really want to know what he'll find when he opens his eyes. 

His head feels heavy, like it does every time this happens, filled with the dust the last universe left behind when it collapsed. The pounding of his heart against the inside of his ribcage sounds so loud that he wonders if the sleeping figure right beside him can hear it too. 

He shifts towards the person and curls into the heat radiating from their skin, the curve of their back fitting perfectly into his lean figure. Strands of hair tickle his neck and cheeks, the smell bringing him back to long lost worlds. 

Mark doesn't even have to open his eyes to know that the person he's clinging onto is Donghyuck, because this is what happens every single time. He wakes up underneath a moon he's never seen, and Donghyuck will be by his side. He is always there, just like the others. Sometimes they know him, sometimes they don't, but they are the only thing he has left from home and that's all he really needs at this point. 

The pounding in his head has lessened to a dull thumping and in a single moment of courage he dares to open his eyes. His gaze is met with a wooden wall and white bedsheets, illuminated by the soft grey light of the moon seeping in through cracks in the ceiling. Donghyuck's hair is as black as it was when he and Mark drowned in a mountain lake just hours before and Mark has to refrain himself from running his hands through it, wanting to feel every inch of this Donghyuck before he has to leave everything behind again. 

His cold fingers find Donghyuck's underneath the sheets and he intertwines them slowly, not wanting the other to wake up. They still fit, like they always do, and Mark smiles to himself. He's glad that for now this Donghyuck seems to be a copy of his own Donghyuck, the one that he lost a long time ago, when he felt his own universe shatter under the weight of his mistakes. 

"Hyung can you please stop hugging me so tightly? You're choking me." Donghyuck's voice sounds like it does in every world, soft and high-pitched and safe. It brings Mark comfort, it makes him feel at home. 

Mark lets out a small chuckle and moves his right hand from the boy's neck to his waist, lets his long fingers rest against the glowing skin, feels the heat consume him from the inside out. 

"Did I wake you up?" Donghyuck nods his head slightly and turns to face him. His dark eyes are still filled with the aftermath of his dreams, he blinks them away in a second. 

The hand Mark is holding gives his own a soft squeeze. Mark smiles at Donghyuck, wants to say that he misses him, wants to say that he's sorry for leaving him to die over and over again, wants to say so much, but he can't. Just thinking about these things makes the moon here shine less bright and makes the ocean waves just outside wild. He doesn't want to let another world go to waste, doesn't want to lose another Donghyuck. 

Over the years Mark has learnt that every time he wakes up underneath a new sky, the universe where he from fails to succeed at going on without him. He can feel it break into tiny pieces in his mind. He can feel it because a part of him breaks too, and he can only think about how many more shattered universes it's going to take before there's nothing left of him. 

He dies there, and the others stay alive until everything they know inevitably crumbles under the weight of his absence. He can never stop wondering if they miss him though, can never stop wondering if they cry for him right before their world dies along with all their memories of him. 

"Are you ready to leave tomorrow?" Donghyuck asks, voice laced with sleep and something that might be excitement, or fear.  

"Where are we going again?" Mark knows it's risky to ask things like this, but he has to figure out how this world works all on his own.  

"We talked about this for hours last night, Mark. What do you mean where are we going?" Mark always has to be on edge, always has to be careful to not let anything slip. He never knows where he's going to end up, but figuring out doesn’t usually take very long.   

"I'm just so tired, Hyuck. I'm sorry." 

Donghyuck's face falls and he sighs heavily before looking up at him. "Sleep then. It's a long drive from Busan to Seoul. Taeyong hyung said that we have to be well rested to be able to take the wheel if anything happens." 

Mark closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, Donghyuck lets go of his hand. The loss of contact makes him feel cold again, reminds him of the gaping black holes in his deteriorating memory. 

Right before he falls asleep again, he thinks about Seoul, thinks about how many lifetimes he's spent there, and realises that he can't quite recall the glow of the neon city lights or the noise of the rush hour.  

Donghyuck's soft snores fill his ears when he starts to drift away. 

\--- 

It's Youngho who wakes them all up the next morning, when the moon is still high in the sky. He pulls the blankets off of them and forces them to go wash. Mark had almost forgotten what Youngho's voice sounded like, tries to let it fill up the empty spaces in his brain.  

Taeil and Sicheng are packing rice and canned vegetables in khaki backpacks, Dongyoung is filling up plastic water bottles. Everyone seems to be in a rush to get things done and Mark remembers that he's somewhere different now. 

Taeyong knocks into him from behind and stumbles to the floor. Mark reaches a hand out to pull him up. 

"Mark what the hell are you doing here?" Taeyong's loud voice bounces against the wooden walls, fills up the entire room. Everyone stops momentarily to look at their leader, but goes back to their individual tasks a few seconds later.  

Mark eyes Taeyong helplessly, but the latter looks angry and Mark doesn't know what to do. 

"You were in charge of reloading the guns, we went over the tasks a thousand times. If we run into a bunch of government soldiers without them, we're done for."  

"I'm sorry hyung, I forgot." Mark stammers quietly. 

A look of compassion flashes over the leader's face, but his stare quickly hardens again. 

"I'll go do it then. You can help Dongyoung fill the bottles." 

"Yes hyung." 

Taeyong pats his shoulder quickly before taking a wooden box in both hands and carrying it outside. 

Mark lets his eyes wander around the room for a split second, tries to take in his surroundings, does his best to adjust to the new environment. 

Everything is made out of the same dark wood; the beds, the table, the chairs. There are bullet holes in the walls and cracks in the ceiling, the windows are boarded up. The place is lit by an old kerosene lamp. It casts dark shadows across every surface, gives off an eerie feeling. 

He quickly runs over to Dongyoung who's crouched by a small tap. He hands him the bottles and screws the caps onto the ones that are filled up. Dongyoung shoots him a grateful look and Mark smiles. 

The older's hair is black and tied back into a bun, he has a scar by his left eye and scratches all over his hands. Mark wonders what happened to him, to all of them. He notes that Dongyoung's smile is still the same, even in this gloomy place, and feels a little lighter about his current situation. 

"Okay guys, listen up please." Youngho raises his voice for Donghyuck to hear. He's on the other side of the room, stuffing seemingly important papers into a black briefcase. 

"Taeyong said that we're leaving at five thirty, that's ten minutes from now. Every one of you needs to be in the car by then, carrying a backpack, three water bottles and two guns. Once we're on the road I'll explain the driving and guarding schedules. We stop in Daegu to pick up papers, then we head straight to the base in Seoul, got it?"  

They all nod at Youngho and get ready for the drive. Mark looks at Donghyuck who now has the briefcase in his right hand and a dagger in his left. On his arms are bandages and in the weak light of the lamp the scars on his face are easily distinguishable. 

Donghyuck looks up at him and smiles, bright like the sun. He walks over to Mark and puts the dagger through one of his belt loops. With unsteady breaths he grabs Mark's right hand and exhales loudly. 

"Are you ready now?" He asks, voice trembling under the pressure of things. Mark plays with the boy's fingers and nods at him. Donghyuck seems to relax under his touch. 

"Then I'm ready too." 

\--- 

They drive next to the ocean for the longest time. Taeyong explains it's because the government knows that Daegu is the place for criminal and illegal transactions. They try to intercept as many of them as possible and a lot of the people involved end up either in prison camps or dead. This is why they stay close to the shoreline for as long as they can and head straight to the west via smaller, unused roads to get into the city like that. 

Mark doesn't particularly mind this because the waves calm him down and the smell of salt that fills his nose is a nice change from the smoke that seems to have found a home in his lungs. 

Next to him sits Sicheng, who is staring at his hands, at the floor, at anything that isn't the scenery outside. Mark asks him what's wrong and Sicheng almost starts crying. 

"The ocean reminds me of home and I just miss my mum so much." He says, eyes filled with tears, shoulders slumped under the weight of war and too much responsibility. 

Mark realises that he doesn't even remember what his mother's voice sounds like. 

Taeyong glances at them through the rearview mirror, his face twisted. He whispers something to Taeil who's sitting in the passenger seat, doesn’t let the frown leave his face. 

They halt at an abandoned farm a little while later. 

"We're stopping for exactly five minutes, so if you have anything to do, do it quickly." Youngho sounds firm, as is he's prepared to actually leave those that take longer than five minutes behind. 

Sicheng lifts his head up from Mark's shoulder. He looks over and sees Taeyong taking the boy's hand. They walk over to the barn and Mark keeps looking at them hugging because it's one of those things that doesn't change. The seven of them have always leaned on each other, and Mark feels a fire burning deep inside him. 

He is so mad at this world for making his friends suffer, is so mad at himself for not wanting to end this world and their pain by confessing and killing himself. He is so incredibly selfish but he does it all for Donghyuck. 

When they drive deeper into the countryside, the paved roads turn into gravel and dirt. Everything is enveloped in a smoggy haze and the air leaves Mark's lungs once again. The villages they pass are in state of decay and completely vacant, save for the few people who firmly stood their ground when the war broke out three years before. 

Nature seems to have found its way back to where it originally belonged. Weeds grow in cracks in the pavement, roots of trees break through old wooden floors, bears roam the forests. The only thing that's missing is the singing of birds that usually accompanies the soft early morning sounds. Mark gets distracted by the white noise in his head and everything about this world feels wrong. 

He looks out the dust-coated window and tries not to think about how awful this universe is. 

Donghyuck is sleeping behind him, his head pressed against the window. Dongyoung takes off his jacket and folds it neatly. He puts it in between Donghyuck's face and the glass, makes sure the boy is comfortable before returning his gaze to the tips of the hills that are slowly being painted shades of pink and orange by the rising sun. 

Mark looks at him and thinks about the first Dongyoung he knew, thinks about how different that version of him was compared to this one, thinks about how, in the end, Dongyoung is the only one who has never let Donghyuck down, knows that Donghyuck will be in good hands when he leaves once again. 

Dongyoung turns his head toward him and looks him up and down. 

"Thanks for caring about him hyung," Mark tells him quietly. He gets a wide smile in return and feels the clouds in his head clear up a little.  

This Dongyoung barely talks and it makes Mark feel uncomfortable because the previous versions of him were always loud and outgoing and sociable, and Mark knows something horrible must've happened to him, but his bones are already aching and he doesn't want to ask because the confirmation that this place is as ugly as it seems might actually break them. 

The light that's slowly trying to break through the thick grey clouds hits his eyes and he averts his gaze to the back window. The sun has set the world around them on fire and for the first time since he's woken up here, Mark doesn't really mind the silence.  

Sunrises never change so Mark tries to cling on to them because they're a consistency. The hope of a new day fuels him, the only hope he can never lose, unlike everything else he has. 

In the drivers seat Taeyong yawns and Taeil asks him if he wants to sleep. Mark knows that Taeyong's tired, he always is, worried about everything and everyone, always wanting to put other people before him. Taeil takes his responsibility as the oldest and tells Taeyong to go to sleep in the backseat. The leader tries to put up a fight but collapses from exhaustion and goes to lie down next to Sicheng. 

Before closing his eyes, he looks up at Mark, seems to look out for him in such a familiar way it makes his heart shatter. 

"Get some rest, Mark, I need to make sure that you and Hyuck will be okay tomorrow,"  

"I will hyung, don't worry about me." 

"I care too much not to." 

In Taeyong's words is nothing but sincerity and Mark is about to open his mouth to speak again when Taeyong curls his arms around Sicheng's back and falls asleep. His worries never seem to fade, no matter how insignificant they are. That's how Taeyong shows he cares, how he shows he needs them. 

When everyone but he and Taeil are asleep, Mark dares to speak up about whatever lies in front of them. 

"Hyung, can I ask you something?" 

Taeil jumps slightly at the unexpected sound, tries to hold the car on the road. "Goddammit Mark, don't scare me like that when I'm driving." He sounds tired, like he's an old man in the body of a young one, like he's been trying to hold everything together for way too long. 

"I'm sorry." 

"It's okay. What did you want to ask?" 

Mark hesitates for a second, doesn’t know if the answer he'll get will make him feel better or worse. "Do you think we'll make it?" There's a slight quiver in his voice, "All of us, I mean." 

Taeil inhales deeply, doesn't say anything for a while. They sit in utter silence for the longest thirty seconds of Mark's eternal life. Taeil eventually breaks the quiet.  

"I don't know." 

Mark doesn't even feel anything. 

\--- 

It's pouring rain when they enter Daegu through the Eastern Gate, armed to the teeth underneath their disguise. Mark wonders what brings them here, wonders if the city will look anything like he remembers it.  

"Yoonoh's on the north side of the square," Taeyong says, studying the map on the tablet in his hands, "The streets are supposedly safe."  

They all nod at that, reading the instructions that their leader has written down for them. They keep in line, the older ones on the ends, and the younger ones safely in-between, shielded from the outside world by warm bodies and wary hearts. Mark finds himself pressed against Donghyuck's broad back, the younger's hand surely holding on to his own as they're moving along the empty streets. It's clammy and sticky, but it's warm, and it sends waves of reassurance through Mark's entire body. Donghyuck is always his, even though this one doesn't know it yet. 

"Where is the headquarter these days?" Youngho asks after a couple of minutes, skyscrapers around them growing taller by the second. Mark turns his head to look at him at the end of the row, where his hands are steadily holding onto a gun underneath his dark blue coat. It frightens Mark, how comfortable Youngho seems with the whole thing, or maybe he's just pretending to be, the Youngho of other universes has always pretended a lot too. 

Taeil answers him from the front, high voice muffled by the red woollen scarf he's wearing, rain beating down on the exposed skin of his face. "It's where Hansol used to live, before-" Taeil cuts himself off, everything falls silent around them for a little while. "You know, before he got shot." 

\--- 

Jung Yoonoh welcomes them with a tired smile and gaping gash on his forehead. He stumbles into his tiny office on shaking legs, taking a sip of the cold coffee that seems to have been sitting on the desk for a while. "Sorry for the mess, boys," he laughs, "I haven't really had time to clean up as you can see." He brings his hand up to his head after that, grimaces and winces when his fingers come into contact with the blood trickling down his right temple. 

"What the fuck happened to you, Jae?" Taeyong asks incredulously, unable to hide his concern for the younger. He rests his hands on Yoonoh's pale cheeks to investigate the wound on the other's head. Mark notices how his thumbs brush Yoonoh's cheekbones once in a while, how the latter's skin colours a soft pink under the older's gentle touch.  "It's nothing Yongie," he says, "They'd never get me alive anyway." 

Donghyuck tends to Yoonoh's wound as the other shares the information he's acquired about the current state of the resistance and their task for the base in Seoul. "It's easy," he states, "You just have to break into Park's main building and wait for our helicopter, they'll take you away when you've eliminated the officials." Yoonoh says it like it's nothing, guzzling down instant ramen as he does so. Donghyuck's hands are shaking by Yoonoh's head, Mark wants to hold him until they don't anymore. 

"It's easy?" Dongyoung questions, jaw clenched and eyes dull. "It's never easy, Yoonoh," he says, voice barely cutting through the thick tension that hangs over them, "You don't just get used to killing people." He rises form the wooden floor and picks up his gun, gestures for Donghyuck to follow him. Mark feels his heart beating in his throat and against the emptiness in his chest. Donghyuck squeezes his hand before he leaves, turns back to look at Mark with the sun in his eyes. Mark hates the dreariness of this universe, he does, but Donghyuck's brightness hasn't gone yet, so Mark holds on to what he has and hopes he'll wake up somewhere else soon enough. 

"When do we go?" Sicheng asks, heavy accent and slight smile. He reminds Mark of all the other Sichengs, timid and soft. Boys like him don't belong in a world made of war, but then again, none of them really do at all.  

"We should leave now so we'll be in Seoul when the sun sets, then we can catch a couple hours of sleep and prepare for the mission," Taeyong answers. The determination in his voice allows Mark to relax. He finds that this universe doesn't really need a backstory at all, it's already terrible enough as it is, it doesn't really take much for Mark to figure that out by himself. 

\--- 

They're in the car again, driving on a desolate strip of highway full of cracks and potholes. The concrete road echoes monotonously in Mark's ears, almost lulls him to sleep. Donghyuck sits with his thigh pressed against his, heavy head resting on Mark's aching shoulder. He frowns in his slumber, mumbles and whimpers, looks so defenceless against the horrors of the world around him. Mark rakes his fingers through Donghyuck's wavy hair, caresses his cheek and lets his hand rest on the other boy's leg. They've been travelling for hours now, Mark doesn't want to know what the days were like before he arrived. 

"This was home," Mark says later, when they pass through Namyangju. All eyes are on him in a split second. "I don't even recognise it anymore." What Mark doesn't say is that he hasn't been here ever since he started waking up in other worlds, that it's been so long that he doesn't even remember what home was supposed to look like before he ended up drifting through different realities.  

The tall apartment blocks just outside the destroyed city-centre still stand tall as ever, so high that Mark can't even tell where they end. The clouds cling to them like a thick fog. Mark wonders if the sun warms the highest stories, the ones where people he knew used to live, figures they probably hold nothing but despair these days. 

They drive past a refugee centre that Mark realises used to be his middle school. He creates a brightly coloured picture in his mind, thinks of books and school uniforms and his old friends, thinks of how he met Donghyuck after auditioning for a big entertainment company, thinks of how he never woke up in his own bed again right after the first time they kissed in a Seoul park under the burning summer sun. 

"You have us now," Sicheng says softly from beside Donghyuck, "We can be your home." He smiles when he speaks the words, careful and genuine, like the first Sicheng Mark had met all those years ago.  

There was a universe out there where he ended up in a group with all of them. They travelled the world and performed for thousands of people who adored them, who listened to all the things they had to say. Mark recollects a memory of how he and Donghyuck were kept apart those days, because what they had would ruin their image, because what they had did not conform to what the people in that world thought was right.  

Although they grew apart after that, Mark figures he would choose that universe above this one in a heartbeat. Those easy universes were never kind to him, but at least his friends weren't crying onto each other's shoulders and having to get used to killing people, at least Donghyuck was okay there, Mark never really cared much about anything else. 

"I have you now," Mark agrees, averting his gaze from Sicheng to the shadows cast upon Donghyuck's sleeping face. "I don't really need more than that." 

\--- 

Seoul is in ruins. Mark feels how the world shifts beneath his feet as two universes collide. He was here just weeks ago, when that world was made of pastels and cherry blossoms, when the building he and Donghyuck fell from was coloured a soft golden in the early morning light. It's all grey now, the streets and the clouds and the faces of the people strolling along the run-down pavement.  

They take the subway down to the wealthy part of town, where the skyscrapers are abundantly decorated and where the presidential palace towers over the rest of the ruined city like a source of light in the all-encompassing darkness the war has placed over the people. Donghyuck instinctively reaches out for Mark's hand when a fighter jet breaks through the sound barrier. An alarm sounds somewhere in the distance, none of them know what it means. 

"We're staying here for the night," Taeyong says, gesturing to an abandoned apartment block with broken windows, "It's not much but it's down the street from where we need to be tomorrow." Youngho and Taeil volunteer to keep watch and Donghyuck and Dongyoung cook. Mark can almost imagine being in back in a world that isn't trying to tear them all apart. 

It surprises Mark every time, how little the universes differ from each other, how much of the others he can find again and again. It surprises him how he's seemingly the only one that doesn't remain the same throughout the universes he outlives, figures that that's probably the exact reason why. He doesn't age and he doesn't grow, and he loves them all the same, but his mind breaks into pieces when two worlds are too alike and he can't differentiate between what's real and what's not anymore.  

After dinner he flees to the rooftop to bid the sun farewell, to escape from the pressure the others unknowingly put onto his aching shoulders, to remind himself what he's here for. Mark doesn't know if this Donghyuck knows already, if the Mark that was here before him has already told the younger how he sets every piece of his skin on fire with just a single touch, a single breath of high-pitched laughter. He wonders if this Donghyuck would accept it, the way his own Donghyuck did before his world turned into ash and dust.  

And it's not that Donghyuck rejects him every time, but it happens enough for Mark to remember. Those universes leave thick scars on Mark's heart, pierce his lungs and cut gigantic parts of his memory into tiny pieces. Those universes leave absolutely nothing of him whole. 

"Your hair looks kinda ugly like this," a voice pipes up from beside him. Mark turns to find Donghyuck standing there, surrounded by the endless expanse of outer space. The other versions of him are out there, this version of him is the only one within Mark's reach.  

"Thanks," he replies, sarcasm dripping from his tired voice, "You can cut it if you like." Donghyuck lights up and flashes him a familiar smile, comforting, a bit like his own universe. "Can I dye it?" He asks, childish excitement making Mark think he needs to get out of this world fast. Mark shrugs as a dog starts barking down below. "Sure." 

\--- 

Taeyong introduces them to Ten the following morning, before sunrise, when the cold bites into Mark's skin all the way through the four layers of fabric he's wearing. He rakes a hand through the dry mop of bleached hair on top of his head, it's more yellow than platinum, Donghyuck says he loves it nonetheless.  

"Youngho, Taeil, Taeyong and Sicheng, you invade the building and get the officers' plans for future attacks, eliminate whoever's in your way. Dongyoung and Yuta distract the guards," Ten says, pointing at Yuta who's standing beside him, waving at them with a warm smile on his face. "Donghyuck, Mark and I wait on the roof for the helicopter and I leave with the plans." He looks all of them in the eyes, "Is that understood?" They nod, Mark feels a hollow ache in his chest when he thinks of how real the chance of one of them dying is. 

Mark remembers Ten and Yuta from other universes. Ten loves dancing and Yuta can't cook, they're his brothers, Mark will break apart when they die. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Youngho hugging Ten tightly. They were a dynamic duo once, when Youngho was still Johnny, when Mark was still in the world he belonged in.  

"I'm so fucking scared," Donghyuck says as he tightens the bulletproof vest around his chest, "I'm so scared they're going to die." Mark swallows the lump in his throat, trails his pale fingers along Donghyuck's tan cheeks, places his sweating forehead against Donghyuck's for a split second, feels the throbbing of his heart there. And how nervous Donghyuck must be, that Mark can feel his pulse all the way in his head, that Donghyuck grips onto the edges of Mark's sleeves with shaking fingers, his breaths uneven as he lets go and tells himself to man up. 

Mark thinks he doesn't need to man up, because Donghyuck's just a boy and this terrible world has forced him out of his childhood into the mindset of a young man who is willing to risk his life for the greater good. And how much Mark loves him, he doesn't know, he doesn't think there's an extent to those kind of things anymore, not when Donghyuck is all that's fair and good, not when Donghyuck is everything there is. 

"We'll be okay, Hyuck," Mark says, voice wavering from the uncertainty lying beneath the determined words "We'll get the plans and Ten will fly away in the helicopter and we'll live, of course we will." He thinks of how Taeil doubted their survival and falters, he's not so sure if he believes his own words. Donghyuck straightens up and nods, "Will you kiss me when we all survive?" He asks and Mark feels a shudder run down his spine. It's not cold anymore, it's all heavy tension. "I will," he agrees, "I'll kiss you forever if we survive." 

"You better be a damn good kisser then," Donghyuck retorts and Mark snorts, because he's nervous, because he's scared, because he needs Donghyuck to be there until the very last universe shatters in his head. 

\--- 

The wait is agonising. They're on the rooftop of the skyscraper, watching the soft pink sky for a helicopter in sight. On the southern horizon are thick black clouds gathering, Mark shivers from the strong wind. Ten stands on the edge of a wall, binoculars in his hand, black hair everywhere. Donghyuck is on the other side of the roof, singing softly to himself, Mark closes his eyes and pretends he's back home.  

He opens them again and looks down over the edge. He sits there with his feet dangling in the cool morning air, calmly, as if he can't just let go and drop three hundred meters to the ground below, as if he can't just let go and open his eyes in a new universe.  

"I think the heli's there!" Ten yells out in a loud voice, almost drowned out by the rising wind. Mark turns his gaze to where Ten is pointing, squints at the distant lights in the purpling sky. It's going to storm later, Mark can feel the electricity in the air, the acidic smell in his nose and the static feeling in his hair. Donghyuck loves thunderstorms, so Mark loves them too. 

Gunshots in the building below them distract him from the rapidly approaching roaring of the helicopter's blades, from the thunder rumbling in the distance. Donghyuck jumps up and runs towards Ten, who's holding a walkie-talkie in his hand, face falling as he listens to the message from the others.  

It starts to rain when Mark takes Donghyuck's hand and pulls him down the rusty metal stairs, doesn't stop when a protruding piece of metal slashes his right arm, runs as fast as his shaking legs allow him. It's not their helicopter, Mark realises as Donghyuck stars to cry somewhere halfway the ground and where they left Ten, the stars on the bottom weren't theirs, they are dictator Park's. "Something's gone wrong," he says, "We were betrayed." Donghyuck clings onto his hand like it's all there's left of him, and even though he's Mark's priority, he hesitates to keep going.  

"We have to go back," Donghyuck yells then, voice breaking as the frustration in his voice builds up "They're going to kill him, we have to go back!" Mark nods and turns around. It's not safe, but then again it never is.  

Mark thinks they're right on time. They find Ten crouched behind a concrete wall, gun right next to him. "Are they gone?" Donghyuck asks, "Did they see you?"  

Ten nods and Mark almost sighs out of relief that they're gone, before Ten looks up at them, tears pooling in his black eyes. "They saw me," he says, and his voice sounds like it could make the whole world break down, "I'm dying." The rain starts beating down on them relentlessly, water pools at Mark's feet, coloured a deep red by the blood gushing from Ten's chest. 

Mark backs off, doesn't know what to feel, doesn't know what to do. The universes in his mind are going crazy, all the splinters of Ten pierce his brain until his head feels like it's going to burst. Donghyuck on the other hand crouches down next to Ten, presses down on the gaping hole in the older's chest with both his hands, blood running along his fingers, washed away by the rain and immediately replaced. "Look at me," he tells Ten in a stern voice, the latter's face getting paler by the second, "Hold on until the others are here." The blood keeps flowing out of Ten's weak body, losing oxygen, losing his life. Mark thinks he's going to bleed out at this rate, supposes there's nothing that can be done anymore. 

The door to the roof bursts open and Youngho and Taeyong come running through at the speed of light, a blur of black hair and desperation. Donghyuck holds his fingers to Ten's neck, Youngho starts crying. Mark has never in a single universe see him do that before, his heart aches for his Ten and Johnny somewhere thousands of lightyears away, in a long forgotten world. 

"What the fuck," Youngho stutters out, "You just came back, Ten, what the fuck." He puts his large hands over Ten's nearly translucent cheeks, brushes the wet hair off of his forehead. Ten tries to smile, his lips slightly pulling up at the corners before falling into a pained grimace, he motions for Youngho to come closer. Mark feels how the rain turns salty when it falls onto his lips, how his own blood slowly seeps from the cut on his arm. 

Mark feels a hand on his shoulder, looks up through blurry eyes to find Dongyoung right next to him motioning at the gash on his arm. "I'm going to have to stitch that up, alright?" He asks carefully, Mark can't even feel the pain anymore. 

When Ten dies and the rain stops, they have to move on, because the war doesn't stop and the sun still burns over their heads and Ten's in another universe now, or somewhere in a star maybe. Youngho holds onto to Ten's dead hands for another forty minutes. Mark holds onto Donghyuck's, warm in his own, alive. He feels bad for being relieved that it wasn't him, that it wasn't his sun that got taken away. 

\--- 

They're sitting on the edge of a large bridge, looking out over the busy city. Mark is holding his arm, hurting now that the initial shock of Ten's death has faded from his every cell. "That one will form an ugly scar," Donghyuck says, tracing his slender fingers along the carefully stitched up wound on Mark's right arm, "It'll match your face."  

Mark smiles and nods his head fondly, the seagulls screeching above distract him from Donghyuck's soft giggle. "It can remind you of us," the younger says, "of me." Mark looks up and is met with Donghyuck's sunshine smile, still so bright.  

The sun is going down over the ruins of the city behind Donghyuck. Scattered orange light reflects from the pools of water in the nearly dried up riverbank far below, falls upon his sunburnt cheeks like a final goodbye. Donghyuck is made of gold, he's the best Mark will ever have. 

He looks down at the cut on his arm once again, wonders if it'll still be there when this universe becomes another shattered piece in the mosaic of his past, wonders if it'll always remind him of this Donghyuck, with glowing skin under the flaming sky and a knack for comforting people right before the light goes out in their eyes. (He supposes it's a gift. He supposes it's not one Donghyuck should have to use as often as he has. War is breaking them all apart, its not something you get used to.) 

"So," Donghyuck pipes up when the sun has died, not in the way Ten has, not in the way that they'll never get to see him again, "I know you said that you were only going to do it when we all lived and well," he trails off, "well, we didn't." Mark nods and frowns a bit, doesn't quite get what Donghyuck is getting at (except he maybe kind of does).  

"So I was wondering if you could still kiss me anyway, because Youngho lost Ten and I don't even want to think about dying without having kissed you at least once," Donghyuck states, voice soft and determined and so like him that Mark wonders for a single moment if this is _his_ Donghyuck.  

Mark smiles and takes Donghyuck's hands in his own, as soft and sweaty as they've always been, strokes his thumbs over the scars woven across the back of them, the only difference from his own Donghyuck's hands. "I mean if you're really this desperate," Marks laughs and Donghyuck scoffs but nods and brings his hands up to tangle them in Mark's dry yellow hair. "I'm so desperate," he replies, before pressing his cracked lips onto Mark's, "You're hot, even with your ramen hair." 

Later that night, when the air starts to cool off and Donghyuck buries the tip of his nose in Mark's hair, cold and red, Mark figures that this is it. It always ends like this, with either a rejected confession or a kiss so loving that he feels like it's never going to happen again. He supposes that there's going to be a next universe, and then another one, that he'll keep waking up underneath a new sun until it dies, or until he has so many broken worlds inside his head that there's going to be nothing left of him.  

"I love you," he tells Donghyuck and the latter nods against his shoulder, breathes warmly onto his neck. "I know," he says. That's the only thing Mark has ever wanted for him. "Listen to Taeyong and the others alright?" He asks and Donghyuck looks up at him with confusion in his glistening eyes, "Where are you going?" His voice sounds soft around the edges, kind of like he knows. Mark figures he'll be alright. "I don't know," he replies. Donghyuck stares at him for a long time, eventually nods and kisses him again. "I'll think of you for the rest of my life," he whispers in Mark's ear right before falling asleep, he never lets go again. 

\--- 

The bed Mark wakes up in is cold. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> so yeah, idk why but i was sad so this is sad and im sorry. i dont really know if this really hangs together or makes any sense at all because i started this last summer and forgot about it and well yeah this is what came out of it. its also really ooc but i just needed some angst man.  
> (also i know that mark is not from namyangju but it just kinda made sense for the story so just roll with it)  
> thanks for reading!! kudos and comments are always appreciated <3


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